New business more than doubled last year at Radian Guaranty Inc. Delinquent insured loans have fallen over the past year but increased from the prior month. However, growth in the number of loans insured likely kept a lid on the delinquency rate.
New mortgage insurance policies were written on $3.85 billion in home loans during December by the Philadelphia-based company, according to monthly operational data released Wednesday.
Business crept up from the previous month, when volume totaled $3.84 billion.
Radian has boosted its volume significantly from a year earlier, when $2.3 billion in residential loans were insured.
Last month’s business brought full-year 2012 activity to $37.1 billion. That was more than double the $15.5 billion in policies written during 2011.
The primary delinquent inventory ended last year at 93,169 loans.
Past-due policies deteriorated from 92,770, as of Nov. 30, 2012. But the delinquent inventory has subsided from the same point in 2011, when 110,861 policies were delinquent.
Despite the month-over-month deterioration in delinquent policies, the rate of delinquency likely fell as a result of consistent growth in Radian’s book of business.
Using an estimated 769,827 total policies outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2012, the delinquency rate was an estimated 12.10 percent, easing from an estimated 12.13 percent at the end of the prior month.
Radian previously reported that its delinquency rate was 15.19 percent as of Dec. 31, 2011.